Road To The Champion Hurdle

He'd still have to be behind Binocular in the betting based on Binocular's performance there last year and his experience around Cheltenham. However, Hurricane is a serious contender.
 
solwhit has had bigger beatings

HF is another contender.. where the contenders have a couple of pounds between them if the all run to their best
 
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Hurricane Fly not exactly exposed over 2m yet. The shorter trip suits him much better (imo) than 20f does, and I reckon he is capable of running to a mark in the same ballpark as Binocular did in last year's Champion. He deserves his place towards the head of the market and a shade under 6/1 on Betfair seems a perfectly reasonable price to me (despite having been toasted by the horse ante-post the last two years).
 
Ruby Walsh can barely contain his enthusiasm for Hurricane Fly after his victory in the much-rearranged Hatton's Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse on Wednesday.
Willie Mullins' five-time Grade One winner has had a series of niggling injuries which have forced him to miss the last two Cheltenham Festivals, but Walsh is hoping he has a clear run this season.
"This is probably the first time in a long time Willie has had no hold-ups with him. Last year, before he went to Punchestown, he'd had a hold-up through the winter, whereas this year things have gone really right for him," Walsh told At The Races.
"His Flat form is very good. He could have gone for the Champion Stakes and the Arlington Million with him, he's a high-class Flat horse, but he loves jumping and has a great attitude. Willie was surprised he beat a race-fit Solwhit, but that's the regard he holds Solwhit in.
"The trip was never going to be an issue. I won a two-three hurdle race in France on him as a four-year-old. He's a wonderful little horse. He has loads of speed and he stays."
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I am still to be convinced that Hurricane Fly is as good as the horses across the water. Ok, he beat Solwhit well, however the time was slow, the proximity of Voler La Vadette and Mourad doesn't hugely enhance the form.

My issue with the horse is that he has not raced outside Ireland since 2008, so his form is all against horses that are not exactly top class. You can gauge the form through Solwhit, but Solwhit's forays across the water have resulted in a win in the Aintree Hurdle against a poor field, and a stuffing at Cheltenham in March, albeit with an interrupted performance.

Perhaps I will be convinced when he saunters in pulling double next March, at this point, I am not.

JohnJ
 
It wasn't that poor a field at Aintree. The runner-up franked the form later on at Punchestown but hasn't been seen since unfortunately. HF travels so nicely that a faster pace over shorter would have been more beneficial certainly from a form point of view as he surely would have beaten the other horses (Solwhit apart maybe) by a lot further.
 
I find it odd that Hurricane Fly is viewed only through the Solwhit prism. View him through the Go Native prism, and you can make a pretty bullet-proof case for him in a Champion Hurdle.
 
Grasshopper,

They met on ground that Go Native doesn't go on, so I wouldn't count that as bullet proof. There is no doubt that HF is a high class horse, I am not doubting that, however, Solwhit is the only 160+ rated horse he has beaten in the last two years.

JohnJ
 
JohnJ, Hurricane Fly has been restricted to just three runs in open company. He has now beaten that 160+ rated hurdler in two of them, and had a setback and 6-month absence to overcome in the other. Any way I look at it, he seems much more a type to keep onside, than one we should question as to whether he is capable of better.

Dropped back to 2m, I'd expect to see more improvement on what he has already shown. He only has a handful of lbs to find to be up around Binocular's level, and soundness concerns are more of a worry in my case, than whether I think he is capable of running to a Champion Hurdle-winning mark.
 
Grasshopper,

I know you're a big fan, I do hope he makes it to Cheltenham in March, it will be the best CH since the likes of Brave Inca, Hardy Eustace, Macs Joy and the enigmatic Harchibald did battle.

JohnJ
 
Grasshopper said:
I find it odd that Hurricane Fly is viewed only through the Solwhit prism. View him through the Go Native prism, and you can make a pretty bullet-proof case for him in a Champion Hurdle.
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In one sense, logically, it's hard to argue with that, but if that were literally the case, then Hurricane Fly is as good as home and hosed, based on Go Native's second and third runs last season - I don't quite believe that to be the case.

Equally, on a line through Solwhit, you could argue Hurricane Fly is behind the best in England, but I also don't believe that form line to be quite on the ball.

It's somewhere between the two for me, and at the moment it's between him, Binocular (providing he comes on from Newbury), Menorah and as a slight outsider, Khyber Kim.

Should be a great race.
 
Mullins on Hurricane Fly

"I'm looking at Leopardstown for the next run and then take it from there," the County Carlow trainer told At The Races.
"I'll get two runs into him before Cheltenham at least.
"He's got plenty of speed and his pedigree suggests he's got lots of stamina and he needs plenty of that to win a Champion Hurdle. A lot of two-and-a-half-mile horses win that race."
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